Letters - October 12, 2017

The announcement that BAE will be making many aircraft workers redundant is a body blow to the highly skilled Lancashire workforce.

The main reason given is the lack of orders for the Typhoon fighter, mainly in the Middle East, with the orders from Saudi Arabia – being the ‘jewel in the crown’ – not forthcoming.

MPs, both Conservative and Labour, and the trade unions, quite rightly, have expressed their worries about the future of aircraft manufacturing in the region.

The one issue that Labour politicians and their paymasters, the trade unions, seem to ignore is the uttering of their Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn in relation to arms supplies to Saudi Arabia.

On many occasions, he has advocated the ban of arm sales to Saudi Arabia from this country.

Just imagine if you were a arms procurement team in Saudi Arabia, would you want to sign a multi-billion pound contract to purchase aircraft from a country whose possible future leader would ban the fulfilment of that order?

I suggest to trade union members at factories affected by redundancies that they ask their union representatives why their trade union is supporting a Labour Party leader whose actions are putting them on the dole.

Bernard Darbyshire

via email

TEETH

Drink with straw avoided decay

I noted in Monday’s Gazette, that you highlighted the problems with teeth for the under fives.

My son was 24 before he needed any treatment at the dentist. Prior to that it was just check-ups, no work needed.

The reason for that was when he was young I insisted that he had his drinks with a straw.

This meant that the drink went straight to the back of his throat and did not touch his teeth thus avoiding any rot due to the sugar in the drink.

Terry Bennett

Dinmore Avenue Blackpool

CHARITY

Thanks for helping the lifeboat appeal

On behalf of Blackpool Lifeboat Station we would like to say a big thank you to the management, staff and customers of Sainsbury’s on Red Bank Road, Bispham, for all their help in raising £242.22 at a recent store collection.

Christine Parry

Secretary, RNLI

BREXIT

Having cake

and eating it

The recent farcical Tory conference, culminating in Theresa May’s disastrous leaders speech, was hardly a confidence booster for many of us who are resigned to a Brexit that will not only be similarly farcical, but similarly disastrous.

It has become arguably clearer that, despite the huffing and puffing about soft or hard Brexit and the production of associated documents or plans that pretty much say nothing and offer little to the negotiating process, the Conservative Party is completely out of its depth over Brexit.

This is largely unsurprising when we have a political party leading the process that is still completely immersed in the philosophy of 18th century economics and ideology.

Like the conference lettering that fell off behind Mrs May last week, we have a Government that seems incapable of even getting the basics right.

After all, the process of Brexit is hardly rocket science.

The EU is a membership club by which the UK contributed a membership fee. In most walks of life, leaving any club would involve you settling your tab before walking away.

Not to demand that you are not only paying any outstanding payments, but still want to use the club’s facilities for free afterwards.

In reality, we have a Conservative Government that is not delivering a civil and fair negotiation on behalf of the UK, but is instead operating like an extremely dodgy used car salesman – attempting to heavy-handedly push the EU in an agreement that is very much one of ‘having our cake and eating it’.

There’s no real diplomacy, political competency nor finesse.

And it is a tactic that is certainly doomed to fail, unless the Conservatives finally leave the 18th century behind and start living in the real world.

Paul Dodenhoff

via email

RAILWAY

There’s a whole lot of shaking going on

There has been much talk recently about fracking and earthquakes.

Well there’s something worse going on, all along the Fylde coast.

Recently my house has begun to shake and shudder in the small hours - and culprit isn’t fracking.

I accept that the railway was there before I was and work needs to be done to electrify the track - but this really is something else.